


The New Normal

by whimsicalmuse



Category: Venom (Comics), Venom (Movie 2018)
Genre: M/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 19:10:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16455662
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicalmuse/pseuds/whimsicalmuse
Summary: Prompt from Tumblr: beginning of their relationship, Eddie is sometimes scared of Venom, cause he still doesn't know them well, he has nightmares and still remembers about "eating organs" thing and it all makes Venom sad.Or another what happened after fic based on the Venom movie.





	The New Normal

 

 

 

After the fallout from the rocket and the Life Foundation, after the police reports and examinations by the medics on the scene, after the long, numb, ride to the closest motel room, Eddie really just wanted to fucking sleep.

There was no room for plans, or feelings, or even much thought beyond stripping down to his underwear and sliding into the thin, starched sheets. Venom, against all impossible odds, was a fluttering weight at the base of his skull, tiny and restless as a dry leaf in the wind. Perhaps they were cold. Or in pain. Eddie didn’t have the energy or brain cells to spare to even ask. 

Sleep.

His only desire, his _only_ fixation was on sleep.

The sun was high and slicing through a crack in the heavy drapes when Eddie woke up the following day. He had to piss, his mouth tasted like ass, he smelled like gasoline and anchovies, and his stomach felt like it was eating itself. 

He thought to Venom, who sent a weak pulse of ravenous hunger, then settled. Eddie shuffled to the bathroom, silently trying to convince himself that they could piss, shower, and eat without passing out or crying. 

In the end, he almost succeeded. 

Venom was near silent the few days they stayed at the motel room. They only roused to request food, and Eddie knew shit was bad, because V didn’t even give him any shit about what Eddie fed them. It was frightening to see the symbiote in such a state, so injured from saving Eddie’s life that they couldn’t even manifest. But as Venom slithered and stretched within him, grazing against organs and lighting up synapses with hazy feelings and impulses, Eddie began to realize that Venom was growing stronger, little by little. 

And, given how weak Eddie himself still felt, a small part of him worried how worse for wear his own organs would be as a consequence of his hospitality. 

Maybe it would have been better if his sleep had been quality. But it was not. He would crash like a lead balloon at night, just too drained to do another thing, but his sleep wasn’t restful. His dreams were haunted by a quicksilver fanged Riot, claws piercing their skin and peeling them apart. The brutal tear and agony of separation. The dizzying fear as he brushed his fingers across the otherworldly spear Riot impaled him with. The quiet moments as he felt his life slip away, all alone, with his Venom nowhere in sight. 

Sometimes he saw fire and smelled the sickening sweet char of Venom’s body as the rocket fuel and flames splashed across the makeshift parachute and ate through his essence while Eddie drifted into the fire-streaked darkness of the San Francisco Bay below him. 

Venom was always there when he would startle out of the dream space, heart in his throat and sweat-slick. 

At first, V could only press intently inside Eddie. Warmth and pulses and the odd impression of comfort here and there. 

Often, keyed up as he was from the nightmare, the gesture had the opposite effect, and Eddie would be back in the MRI room, staring at confusing scans, hearing Dan tell him that the symbiote was _killing him_ , even as Venom roared that he could _fix them_. 

Eddie would shake. He would shake and wheeze and Venom would simply _be_ , an undeniable presence in his mind and body, unable to do more than be there, to wait for Eddie to press back and show him some kernel of trust. 

This pattern continued for weeks. They returned to Eddie’s apartment, new and improved with working doors, windows, and patches in the walls. Broken furniture had been hauled away, and they even put up a new shower curtain rack and introduced bleach to the mold colony Eddie had been nurturing. 

The silence of the apartment was worse than the lead in his limbs, or Venom’s weakness, so Eddie stayed out a lot. 

He knew he should be job hunting, maybe answering some calls from the network, Annie, and other people from the press. He didn’t. 

He should file an insurance claim for his bike, maybe buy real groceries in a real store. He didn’t do that either. 

Instead, he gorged both himself and an increasingly active Venom on street food, people-watching as he ate. He fed the rats with wings, and the sea rats with wings. He stocked tater tots and chocolate, and uncooked carne asada, even though the thought that Venom might finally manifest to devour the steak the way they had snapped up heads made his heart rattle uncomfortably behind his ribs. But not as uncomfortably as when he cooked the steak and Venom remained solidly inside and quiet.

The silence was oppressive. There was no other way to describe it. Eddie even found himself almost missing the racket of his asshole neighbor, rather than to be left with his worry over Venom’s silence. What if they were permanently damaged? Some rudimentary form of their former self? What did it say about himself that the thought of having even a shade of the Venom he knew before was a million times preferable to the breathless loss he felt as he spiraled towards the churning water, knowing that the one who knew him best had given their life for his? 

Christ on a cracker, he was _mooning_. Mooning over a goddamned parasite from outer space.

**Not a parasite, asshole.**

The shock startled him so violently he jumped. Then a sticky feeling he refused to name flooded his veins along with bracing relief and he shuddered. 

“Good to have you back, noodle.” He blindly dug under his pillow and opened a Hershey's kiss, which he promptly stuffed in his face hole. The pleasure of the first taste echoed between them in their shared mind space. 

**Noodle is unacceptable as well. Even now we are stronger than simple carbohydrates, Eddie**.

Eddie sucked on another kiss and shrugged. “Whatever you say, Squidward.”

He was gonna continue with the names until it got old. To him, at least. The joke was long expired by his companion’s measure.

**I know humans are simple minded but your memory isn’t that bad. Venom, _we are Venom_. Not noodle, not a parasite, or whatever that creature you just envisioned with the tentacles is.**

“Sure thing, V. You know what else we are?”

 **Sleepy**.

“Got it in one,” Eddie pushed out around a yawn. “Sleep now. Bitchy later.” 

The soup of relief and happy chemicals settled in his brain and he felt himself drifting, even as he could sense Venom perking up. It felt like the tentative stretches of a person who has been laid on their ass with the flu, that first time they realize they are feeling better. And that knowledge sent another bright flare of pleasure and relief, so deep, right down to his toes. Maybe tonight he wouldn’t have nightmares. 

**You won’t. Rest, Eddie**.

Warmth swelled at the base of his skull and he let out a sleepy sigh. The gnawing worry over Venom had eclipsed _everything_ , even his pitiful longing to reconcile with Anne, and wasn’t that some shit? 

He felt a uncomfortable twist, lightening quick, and then pulse of intention, maybe even words, but he was too close to the embrace of sleep to untangle what V was trying to say, so he let it fall. They could sort it out tomorrow, now that they had the promise of a normal tomorrow. Or, what would constitute their New Normal from now on. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my twin for the beta, as ever. Come visit me on Tumblr to cry about fandom and the state of the world. http://whimsikalmusing.tumblr.com/


End file.
